This past weekend, August and I had some yardwork to do. My little man was VERY helpful–he has an eagle eye for sticks, so he collected them all and threw them in the back of our yard (until I figure out what I’m going to do with a tree’s worth of sticks).

While we were outside in the morning, we started hearing a lot of music: marching bands, bagpipes and even army-style chanting. We decided to investigate.

Good thing we did because we discovered a St. Patrick’s Day parade basically in our backyard! To my knowledge, August has never been to a proper parade. I don’t know if it’s really his scene based on this scrunched up face:

Some of the parade acts were hanging out on side streets. August was ENTHRALLED by these green monsters.

Local celebrity “Buddy,” the former (crooked) mayor of Providence. He’s credited with revitalizing Providence from Mafia-run town to what it is now (which is something of a slightly less Mafia-run town). He did this by using his Mafia connections, which meant jail time for Buddy. But he’s out now, had his own car in the parade and received the most applause and cheers of any act we saw.

August waved to the horses.

The Governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee. Note the absence of car and applauding onlookers.

August kept asking, “Where monsters go?” We lost track of them, and it looked like an endless parade of bagpipers so we headed home for lunch and a nap.